Market in Strange Dance with the Dollar [View article]
Well said. I was trying to point out (in my opinion) the extremely clear inverse correlation that was literally day-to day and indeed my worry that the economy cannot be "off the hook" due to the 10% plus unemployment as well as the continued fragility of our banking system (as noted in my recent blogs). Thanks for the added emphasis.
On Nov 17 07:57 PM Northern Dancer wrote:
> >Over the past several weeks, the market has seemed inversely tied > to the value of the dollar. The dollar goes down, the market goes > up; the dollar goes up, the market goes down. Generally speaking, > the dollar has gone down, and the market has gone up.< > > This inverse relationship has been absolutely locked in place since > November 2005. I hope you're not only noticing it now David.
Renewed Volume and Strong Start to the Week [View article]
Perhaps I shouldn't have emphasized volume... Friday SPY was higher than any day last week (which was indeed pathetic). Ditto NASDAQ and NYSE. It was the increase from very low volumes that I commented upon. I think the editor for the column who normally provides the title if I haven't down so maybe gave it a higher emphasis than I intended. But it was a positive start to the week and I sense a better trading mood than during the summer months.
Renewed Volume and Strong Start to the Week [View article]
Indeed since I am primarily a value investor this is not a good example. However my search yesterday was "flying under the radar" stocks. BJGP seems to have a solid business model and business concept. I like the Oppenheimer review of the stock, I like the concept of distribution of pediatric drug related products in China. The numbers look ok and while I have not worried much about buyout rumors they do have many of the characteeistics of such a company. Do your own due diligence but the numbers are interesting to me. Pfizer is a serious partner. But certainly speculative.
Thanks for your comment. I have indicated consistently for past year that I never pretend to know where the market is headed but at all times stay roughly equally balanced between longs and shorts (or puts). My firms chief business is recommending short side strategies to hedge funds. So I can't very well list the shorts here. My goal in the article is to review the market cap/styles and sectors and toss a few long picks each week that I find attractive in a balanced long/short portfolio. Every now and then I might throw out a short or two. So the discussion needs to be taken in that context.
Thanks for your comment. I try to vary the type of stocks I mention since there is quite a wide array of readers. I think it was just last week or the week before that I emphasized high yield in my search.
But personally I look for total return, in fact absolute return. Dividends are nice although the tax effect hurts a little. There are a number of companies who can or should prosper in this economy. So the growth in share price can easily substitute for dividend if you aren't living off the cash flow.
Market in Strange Dance with the Dollar [View article]
For whatever it's worth I am trying to stay market neutral in equities. The overall market environment is the most complex that I have witnessed. It is much easier to identify strong and weak stocks than to sort out the overall morass of issues effecting the dollar, gold, the equity markets, the debt markets and each ones relationship to each other and more :(
On Nov 18 01:12 PM absolute return guy wrote:
> Great posts by all. I find this site so helpful. Mr. Big, great points > and I agree that you probably aren't getting trapped anywhere.<br/> > > I THINK I am posititioned well for this spike with some short/put > positions in PALM and others. I wonder if the common consensus is > to overweight slightly on the short side as an absolute return investor??? > I too believe the market is overbought and that there is an impedding > spike in the dollar that will send equities falling back to earth. > But everytime I convince myself of that it goes the opposite way.....so > I tend to stay completely neutral. > > Thoughts?
How Will the Market Respond to Our Government's Theatrics? [View article]
General reply to those of you who think the government should spend less. In the long wrong I couldn't agree more. But is the timinng right? I don't think so, due to the current unemployment picture and the fact that the economy is teetering on the edge. Obviously it matters how the money is spent. But we simply must avoid a double dip and me must try to avoid a rating downgrade which would raise interest rates. Fortunately in my opinion the cuts are being staged slowly and with the emphasis in the right types of programs maybe, just maybe we can get employment rising.
I agree that much money has been misspent . We need strong leadership and a functional congress that can work together to give the economy the boost it needs. I do think that closing some of the tax loopholes, especially those that reward foreign job creation could have helpe the bill accomplish our objectives. Clearly private employers should be encouraged to hire! I just don't think the bill as structured focuses anybody on growing employment and is more likely to reduce employment. How can that be a good thing?
Just my opinion. My job is find strong undervalued companies and weak overvalued ones. I better get back to that.
Is Basic Energy Services About to Lose Its Mojo? [View article]
Thanks for your comments. As to insider buying and selling , our firm Sabrient receives daily updates on form 4 filings from Washington Services. For yourself there are several dozen sources. Yahoo Financial is not bad for getting started and in fact probably has much of the data I quoted above. Other users have told me it worked well.
Sabrient produces a product called MY Stock Finder. One of its functions is to find stocks with most insider buying or selling. Anyway Google can help you find a plethora of sites that play a role in helping you find insider buying and insider selling. And there are many tools. Thanks again for your support.
Is Basic Energy Services About to Lose Its Mojo? [View article]
I'm still concerned about Top Insiders selling in very recent weeks and months. HAL indicates margins squeexzed. Why would BAS be different? A lot debt in BAS. But all in all, nothing more than combo of the low cash (maybe now resolved), insider selling and debt plus historical poor performance. Anyway just doing my job and looking and possible problems among top movers. Doubt my article moved the stock so others must be feling pressure.
Thanks for your comments, Harvardhop. Thanks for conferring the Doctorate upon me. Like the Pope we are infallible. And we don't apologize for those few occasions when we are wrong if we ever were. (Just kidding!!)
The quant based screening tool we use gets all the credit. Indeed many of these screens are run by my associate Scott Martindale. Once we enter the kind of stocks we are tring to find, we get a list of stocks in order of how well they fit our request. By clicking the link to MYSTOCK FINDER at the bottom of the article you can learn more about the tool.
As to the the details of hedges I must demur to provide the details. The essence of Sabrient business for the past 10 years has been building long/short portfolios for Hedge Fund Managers. My partners would be most unhappy if I gave away our most proprietary information which is the list of shorts that we are recommending on a weekly basis. We do publish a mini-long/short portfolio of 13 longs and 13 shorts for individual investors called Investors (Hedge). You can learn more about it on the Sabrient website if you wish.
Thanks again for reading our humble opinions of this frustrating market.
At least we are thinking. But there must be specific plans to take us from chaos to the continued rebuilding of our economy. There is no simple "wave of hand solution". We must find a middle of the road solution. We must reduce spending. We must tax more fairly. Anyone who has ever been in government or observed it carefully knows that there are immense boondoggle spending programs. There are gross inefficiencies. And the tax program is filled with loopholes and too little tax on the very wealthy. Both parties are too blame for their weak rhetoric and lack of specificity. The clock is ticking. No serious economist really thinks we can follow this fiscal cliff with its extreme mandates without resuming the recession which will be much more painful than 2008.
I don't understand. The Wall Street Journal says what is a BUY. LEN? Their performance is outstanding but the valuation is very, very high. Next years earnings valued at about 25x, that is triple the average valuation of stocks like STX, WNR, etc. Good stocks can have very high prices. Why didn't LEN go up big on yesterdays huge earnings beat?
What The Market Wants: Continue The Consistency [View article]
I don't think we are looking at this economic landscape the same way. My point the past few issues have been that virtually all countries were facing difficulties or even a serious crisis. The markets had sold-off in more than an appropriate manner. In the last two weeks issues which Seeking Alpha editors chose not to publish, I tried to clarify how domestic valuations had fallen nearly to March 2009 levels (the lowest in recent years). Our conclusion was there were few if any serious options to equities. Fixed income risk/reward is very poor, real estate low but rebounding very slowly and precious metals near historic highs. So there was a need for solutions to the difficulties or crises .
Voila, we got the European summit solution which of course must still play out and equities would move closer to moderate levels. That is what is happening. Of course we need more. We need our congress to become less polarized. We need leadership from our President or our Fed or our congress. The midesast needs many resolutions. China growth slowing needs to turn around but if or as soltions develop, equities will return to at least average levels. Hopefully this make sense.
You can read missing issues free at Sabrient .com, "What the Market Wants".
Market in Strange Dance with the Dollar [View article]
On Nov 17 07:57 PM Northern Dancer wrote:
> >Over the past several weeks, the market has seemed inversely tied
> to the value of the dollar. The dollar goes down, the market goes
> up; the dollar goes up, the market goes down. Generally speaking,
> the dollar has gone down, and the market has gone up.<
>
> This inverse relationship has been absolutely locked in place since
> November 2005. I hope you're not only noticing it now David.
New Twist On Flight To Safety [View article]
Thanks
Renewed Volume and Strong Start to the Week [View article]
Renewed Volume and Strong Start to the Week [View article]
numbers look ok and while I have not worried much about buyout rumors they do have many of the characteeistics of such a company. Do your own due diligence but the numbers are interesting to me. Pfizer is a serious partner. But certainly speculative.
Thank you for the question.
Bears Dance at the Solstice [View article]
I have indicated consistently for past year that I never pretend to know where the market is headed but at all times stay roughly equally balanced between longs and shorts (or puts). My firms chief business is recommending short side strategies to hedge funds. So I can't very well list the shorts here. My goal in the article is to review the market cap/styles and sectors and toss a few long picks each week that I find attractive in a balanced long/short portfolio. Every now and then I might throw out a short or two. So the discussion needs to be taken in that context.
Bulls Ignore Economic Indicators [View article]
But personally I look for total return, in fact absolute return. Dividends are nice although the tax effect hurts a little. There are a number of companies who can or should prosper in this economy. So the growth in share price can easily substitute for dividend if you aren't living off the cash flow.
Market in Strange Dance with the Dollar [View article]
On Nov 18 01:12 PM absolute return guy wrote:
> Great posts by all. I find this site so helpful. Mr. Big, great points
> and I agree that you probably aren't getting trapped anywhere.<br/>
>
> I THINK I am posititioned well for this spike with some short/put
> positions in PALM and others. I wonder if the common consensus is
> to overweight slightly on the short side as an absolute return investor???
> I too believe the market is overbought and that there is an impedding
> spike in the dollar that will send equities falling back to earth.
> But everytime I convince myself of that it goes the opposite way.....so
> I tend to stay completely neutral.
>
> Thoughts?
How Will the Market Respond to Our Government's Theatrics? [View article]
I agree that much money has been misspent . We need strong leadership and a functional congress that can work together to give the economy the boost it needs. I do think that closing some of the tax loopholes, especially those that reward foreign job creation could have helpe the bill accomplish our objectives. Clearly private employers should be encouraged to hire! I just don't think the bill as structured focuses anybody on growing employment and is more likely to reduce employment. How can that be a good thing?
Just my opinion. My job is find strong undervalued companies and weak overvalued ones. I better get back to that.
Thanks for your thoughful comments.
Is Basic Energy Services About to Lose Its Mojo? [View article]
Sabrient produces a product called MY Stock Finder. One of its functions is to find stocks with most insider buying or selling. Anyway Google can help you find a plethora of sites that play a role in helping you find insider buying and insider selling. And there are many tools. Thanks again for your support.
Is Basic Energy Services About to Lose Its Mojo? [View article]
June Gloom Envelops the Market [View article]
The quant based screening tool we use gets all the credit. Indeed many of these screens are run by my associate Scott Martindale. Once we enter the kind of stocks we are tring to find, we get a list of stocks in order of how well they fit our request. By clicking the link to MYSTOCK FINDER at the bottom of the article you can learn more about the tool.
As to the the details of hedges I must demur to provide the details. The essence of Sabrient business for the past 10 years has been building long/short portfolios for Hedge Fund Managers. My partners would be most unhappy if I gave away our most proprietary information which is the list of shorts that we are recommending on a weekly basis. We do publish a mini-long/short portfolio of 13 longs and 13 shorts for individual investors called Investors (Hedge). You can learn more about it on the Sabrient website if you wish.
Thanks again for reading our humble opinions of this frustrating market.
Shame On Washington! [View article]
Looking For Certainty Amid Uncertainty [View article]
Your educated guess?
david
Caution Is The Word Of The Week [View article]
What The Market Wants: Continue The Consistency [View article]
Voila, we got the European summit solution which of course must still play out and equities would move closer to moderate levels. That is what is happening. Of course we need more. We need our congress to become less polarized. We need leadership from our President or our Fed or our congress. The midesast needs many resolutions. China growth slowing needs to turn around but if or as soltions develop, equities will return to at least average levels. Hopefully this make sense.
You can read missing issues free at Sabrient .com, "What the Market Wants".